


MGB

by SirWulf



Series: January [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25609474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirWulf/pseuds/SirWulf
Summary: At seventeen, Illya is a soldier.At eighteen he isn't.
Series: January [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856068
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	MGB

**Author's Note:**

> The MGB were a predecessor of the KGB, and were operating during 1948 - 1949.

At seventeen, Illya is a soldier. 

He’s good at being a soldier. He has even been promoted, which means he’s sometimes in charge of other people. Sometimes it’s odd, because most of them are older than he is, and they know it, which is probably, come to think of it, the reason he isn’t in charge of other people more often. 

Illya has been a soldier for almost three years at seventeen. It had been the orphanage or the military, and Illya had chosen the military. The military hadn’t been an actual choice, but Illya had decided on it anyway. 

The military had involved climbing out the window and running away from Official People. It would have been a bad decision, had they caught him. 

They hadn’t caught him.

*

At seventeen Illya is a solder, and he has a reputation with the other soldiers. 

He has a reputation because he’s good at his job, at following orders, because he’s an excellent sniper and excellent at brawling and because he is clearly and obviously seventeen. 

He doesn’t mind that, much. No one really cares whether you’re seventeen or twenty-seven, as long as you don’t admit you’re underage and you do your job properly. 

Illya likes being a soldier. It’s better than the alternative.

*

The thing about being a soldier is this: you’re just another soldier. 

There are people who Illya cares about – the people he’s in charge of, and Kovalev, who is in charge of Illya, and a handful of men he went through training with and who got assigned to the same unit as he did – and there are people who care about Illya, but in the scheme of things he’s just another cog in a bag of cogs that can be assembled in multiple useful ways by people who know what they're doing. 

Illya quite likes it that way.

*

“Pass the dice, Kuryakin,” says Lebedev. Illya does not like Lebedev. He passes the dice anyway. 

Illya is sitting on the floor in the dormitory with his chess set in front of him, studying the pieces. The dormitory is almost empty; they’ve got leave, and anyone who has family close enough to visit has gone to visit, and most of the others have gone out to carouse. 

Illya’s only family is his sister. He hasn’t seen her in almost three years and he can’t exactly walk up to an orphanage and ask “do you have my sister? I last saw her three years ago when I ran away from you and I’m lying about my age so I can’t tell you who I am.”

That wouldn’t go down very well. With anyone. And Illya would probably get kicked out of the army, and they aren’t in Moscow anyway so he can’t even go to the orphanage he is fairly sure his sister is at and loiter unobtrusively outside. 

“Hey, Kuryakin, do you want to play?”

Illya shakes his head, and moves a knight. Dice is a chance game, and he doesn’t like to leave things up to chance. 

There are three of them in the dormitory; Illya, Lebedev, who is nearly twenty-five and has been in the army even longer than Illya, and Morozov, who’s about eighteen and so new he’s practically painted green. 

“Suit yourself,” says Lebedev. 

*

The dormitory is long and low and crowded. Illya likes it. Every bed is the same, same grey blanket, same white sheet, same locker at the foot. Sometimes new soldiers complain about the monotony of it. 

There’s a soldier who cries in his sleep. Illya doesn’t understand how, but the man does. Lebedev is rude about it. Lebedev is rude about a lot of things. Lebedev was rude about Illya when he first arrived, rude about the fact that Illya was clearly fourteen and definitely not old enough to join the army. 

The soldier who cries in his sleep was in Leningrad, during the siege, which probably explains a lot, and he’s maybe two or three years older than Illya is, which also explains a lot, and his mother died two weeks after he finished training, which definitely explains a lot. 

Illya isn’t sure what to do about the soldier who cries in his sleep. He could talk to the man, but he’s not sure how to go about that, and Kovalev, who is in charge of Illya, and in charge of the soldier who cries in his sleep, says if it goes on much longer he’ll do something about it. 

It’s three weeks after the soldier’s arrival when Illya decides to ask him to play chess. Most people won’t play, after a few games, because Illya is good at chess, and consistently losing isn’t very much fun. 

Illya takes his chess set from his locker, though, and he asks the man, “do you know how to play?” and the man nods once. 

“I’m Kuryakin,” Illya says, and the man looks away and says “Isaev.”

Illya sits down on the floor by Isaev’s bed and says, “would you like to play?” and Isaev nods. He’s cautious, and maybe shy, but he probably isn’t a coward. Lebedev calls him a coward. Lebedev calls everyone a coward, and sometimes he gets hit for it. 

Sometimes Illya hits him for it, if he’s already on edge and his heart is thudding in his ears. Lebedev usually deserves it; he doesn’t feel to bad when it happens. 

They’ve played four games, Illya sitting on the ground and Isaev lying across his bed, when Isaev says, quietly, “I miss my father. And my sisters.”

Illya nods silently, because everyone misses their parents and siblings when they arrive at the barracks. Even Lebedev probably missed his parents and siblings when he arrived. 

“Do you miss your family?” Isaev asks, and Illya blinks and bites at a rook and shrugs because he hasn’t known Isaev very long at all. 

This seams to satisfy Isaev, though, and they go back to their game. Illya wins. Illya usually does.

*

Illya has mixed feelings about prostitutes. 

On the one hand it would be hypocritical to say he disapproved of them, considering his history. On the other hand, there are many things he would rather be doing on his evening off than visiting one. 

“Morozov,” he says, “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

It’s Morozov’s idea. Illya’s there because he tends to be put in charge of the younger soldiers when they’re on leave, tends to be told “don’t let any of them drink too much and choke on their own vomit” and sent out after them. 

There are six of them, including Illya and Morozov, and Illya is the youngest although he suspects Petrov isn’t much older. The other five are drunk. Illya is mildly tipsy. He dislikes the feeling; it’s a lot like the one he gets before his vision goes red and his ears ring and he ends up in a fight. He prefers properly drunk, or completely sober. He can't get properly drunk when he's minding the others, though, and he doesn't feel like he could have gotten through the evening completely sober. 

“It’s a _great_ idea,” Morozov says. Illya stares at him. 

“You could get a venereal disease,” he points out, “the pox, even. That messes up your brain. Makes you go mad, and you’d die, and then your father would probably resurrect you and kill you again.”

Petrov laughs, and laughs, and then throws up in the gutter. Illya sighs. He would rather drink in the dormitory, where you’re not going to get hit by a car or stabbed by someone trying to rob you. 

“Nah,” says Morozov. “I won’t. C’mon, Kuryakin, it’ll be _fun_.”

It won’t be fun. It won’t be fun at all. Illya will sit and wait while his charges attempt to solicit a prostitute, or several prostitutes, depending on how sober each of them is and how much forethought they are collectively capable of, and Illya will have to pay her with the money he confiscated from the others before they left the last bar. He sighs. 

“Alright. I’m not participating.”

Antonov, who’s built like a bear, pokes Illya in the side. 

“It’ll be fun,” he slurs. Illya rubs his forehead. 

“Well. You can have fun, and I’ll make sure none of you die on the way home.”

Petrov stops throwing up and spits vaguely in the direction of the pavement and says “dying’s for cowards,” and almost falls over. 

Illya wonders idly how much trouble he’d get into if he shoved them all into the river and walked away. More than it’s worth, probably.

He doesn’t shove them into the river.

*

Illya took up woodcarving the year he joined the army, because it involved knives, and he liked knives at the time. 

He is quite good at it, if quite good means he can carve recognisable objects and people don’t squint at them and ask, “what’s that supposed to be? Is it a bear?” when they see the carving. 

It’s always bears when the thing’s unfinished. Illya hasn’t quite worked out why. Maybe it's because bears can go on two legs or on four, and almost everything he carves is animal shaped. 

Lebedev seems to have made it his mission in life to make Illya’s day-to-day existence as difficult as is physically possible. Illya steps up his woodcarving, because it’s very easy to do it in a threatening manner, and Lebedev has seen Illya fight with knives. 

And he gets carvings out of it. Win to Kuryakin.

*

It’s incredibly, excruciatingly, implacably cold. 

Illya cannot remember being warm. They huddle together at night like children, and it still isn’t warm. They stand around a pitiful, smoky fire and it still isn’t warm. 

Ivanov gets frostbite so bad that the doctors have to take off two fingers and his entire left hand. The first year they went out during the winter two people died. Illya thinks about that, sometimes, thinks about the man who froze to death in his sleep. 

Illya is an old hand at winter exercises, now. He hates them, but he does not say it. Instead he trudges along through the snow and makes sure to flex his fingers, to keep the blood flowing through them, because he needs his hands to be a soldier. 

Illya is afraid of very little, but he is terrified at the thought of losing his hands. His hands are important; he uses them to handle his rifle and to play chess and to turn pages and to fight. 

It’s Petrov and Morozov’s first winter exercise, and Illya has to keep reminding them that winter exercises do not last forever, even if it seems like they’re going to. 

Antonov licks a metal pole and Illya has to unstick him. It’s always Illya’s job to fix whatever Antonov and Petrov and Morozov and the others have broken, or done, or _not_ done. Illya wishes it wasn’t, sometimes. Most people get the pole-licking thing over with when they’re ten, not twenty. 

“You,” Illya tells Antonov as he’s pouring water onto the pole and Antonov’s tongue and most of Antonov’s face, “are an idiot.”

Antonov can’t answer, because his tongue is stuck to a pole. He tries anyway. It proves Illya’s point.

*

It’s nearly February by the time they get back from the winter exercise. Two days after they return Morozov suggests that they go out to a cinema. 

Illya knows this is code for _let’s go to a cinema and then go to a bar and then go to another bar and see if we can pick up women_ , and so does everyone else. Kovalev, who is in charge of Illya, pulls Illya aside and tells him to go with the group.

Illya sighs. 

“Alright,” he tells Kovalev, and Kovalev says “you’re a good kid, Kuryakin,” even though Kovalev is maybe twenty-one and not all that much older than Illya is. A lot of the older soldiers call Illya a kid, especially if they’ve known him a while. Even Antonov calls Illya a kid, which is odd when Illya is telling Antonov what to do and Antonov says “okay, kid” and ambles off to do whatever it is, or when Illya is unsticking him from poles. 

He goes to get ready to go out. This involves putting on civilian clothes. Illya’s civilian clothing isn’t too small for him yet, which is good. Acquiring new clothing is almost more trouble than it’s worth, because he grows out of it within a year anyway. He likes his uniform better. At least he doesn't have to chose his uniform. 

Illya waits for the others. They jostle and laugh and Illya is only half included, because he's in charge, and because everyone knows that he's younger than they are, and because he is the one who has to fix whatever problems they are inevitably going to cause on their outing. 

Illya wouldn’t have any objection to the cinema, except Morozov flirts incessantly with the woman sitting next to him for the entirety of the film, and Sozonov gets up and disappears off to who knows where halfway through. Illya finds him outside after the film, smoking a cigarette. 

“Want one?” he asks, and Illya accepts. He is not a habitual smoker, but Sozonov seems to find it smoothing to smoke alongside someone. 

“I didn’t like the film,” Sozonov announces as he finishes his cigarette. He lights another one. Illya tries to blow a smoke ring and fails. 

“Mm,” he says, and that seems to be all Sozonov was looking for because his shoulders relax slightly. 

The others come out of the cinema, loud and jostling with one another and Petrov takes the cigarette from Illya’s mouth and sucks in smoke and says “let’s go get drunk,” and Sozonov grins and thumps him on the shoulder. 

They go to a bar. Morozov tries to flirt with women and fails. Petrov and Antonov try to flirt with women and succeed. Illya sits in a corner and doesn’t drink his drink and watches them and doesn’t participate because he still isn’t quite sure how to approach a woman when he’s not trying to make a friend. 

At least Morozov doesn’t suggest the try and find a prostitute, this time.

*

In March Kovalev tells Illya that there’ve been official-looking people coming around. 

Illya is quite fond of Kovalev; they joined the army at about the same time, and Kovalev plays chess with Illya sometimes, so he’s fairly sure Kovalev isn’t setting up a joke. 

“What kind of official-looking people?” Illya asks, because he’s wary of official-looking people; official-looking people were a constant presence in his life for his first ten years, but since then official-looking people have generally been Bad News. 

“Official ones,” Kovalev says, helpfully. Then he grins. 

“MGB, I think.”

Illya stares at him. 

“MGB. What’re they doing around here?”

Kovalev shrugs. 

“Recruiting, I think. Maybe they want you, Kuryakin.” 

It’s a joke. It doesn’t feel like a joke, though; the MGB scare him. 

“Right,” says Illya.

After Kovalev points it out, Illya sees them everywhere. He tries to avoid them, because the MGB quite possibly has a file on him from when his father was important, and they’ll know, maybe, that he’s a traitor’s son. 

No one else knows that his father was a traitor. Illya has never quite worked out what his father did, only that it was bad enough to get him sent to a gulag, that it was some kind of theft, that it was a terrible thing, especially for someone who was supposed to be a leader. He never wants to be like his father. 

Illya watches the official-looking men. He tries not to be seen by them; he hides behind Andronov and pretends he isn’t doing it, because although Illya has grown steadily since he hit fourteen he still isn’t as tall as Andronov, and he clings to the childish hope that if they cannot see him then they will not know he’s there.

*

Illya gets on well with Kovalev; Kovalev and his friends have outgrown the let’s-lick-a-pole-in-winter urge that Illya’s charges still have, and Illya sits with them at meals when he can. Kovalev’s friends have an average age of twenty-two, and that’s older than many of the other soldiers. 

Kovalev drags him away from Lebedev when Illya gets into a fight with him. Illya gets into a lot of fights with Lebedev, because Lebedev’s a jerk and knows the right buttons to push to get Illya’s vision to blur and his ears to ring and his hand to shake like hypothermia. 

Kovalev’s group play cards. Illya is quite good at cards. He’s good at most games that aren’t chance-based, and then he’s universally bad. Kovalev once told Illya that all Illya’s luck is bad. This is quite possibly true. 

He’s sitting on his bed shining his boots when Kovalev comes up to him and says, resignedly, “Lebedev’s a piece of work.”

Illya nods, and keeps working on his boot.   
“What’d he do?” he asks, and Kovalev sighs. 

“Got some girl pregnant. Kid’s only about sixteen, not even marrying age.”

Illya winces. Puts down his boot. 

“I could go hit him,” he offers, because Illya can fix a lot of Kovalev’s problems with Lebedev by repeatedly hitting Lebedev in the face. 

Kovalev grins, but shakes his head.   
“No. That’s a terrible idea. I didn’t have this conversation with you and there’s no way I’m endorsing you punching Lebedev repeatedly. That being said, he should be here in about five minutes, and if you happen to already have a grievance with him I wouldn’t mind you taking it out on his hide.”

Illya nods. 

“As it happens,” he says, “I don’t like the way his head looks today.

Kovalev stands. 

“Well. I’m going to go and smoke. I won’t be back for a while. Whatever happens to Lebedev while I’m gone isn’t any of my concern.”

Illya nods. This will be justice, the way Kovalev was brought up to look at justice. Illya likes this form of justice. He can do something about it.

*

It’s still March when a pair of the official-looking men corner Illya as he is coming out of the dormitory. 

One has a clipboard. Illya hates clipboards for no logical reason, and he scowls at the thing because it’s better than scowling at the men who are probably MGB. You don’t scowl at the MGB; they do many things, and some of them are good things, but they also make people disappear, which isn’t good. 

“Illya Kuryakin,” one says, and it sounds like a question but it really isn’t. Illya nods anyway. 

“Sir,” he says, because he doesn’t know how else to address an MGB officer. 

“We have a proposition for you,” says the one on the left, who looks slightly older and isn’t holding the clipboard. He looks at Illya like he knows everything about him. Maybe the man does.

Illya blinks. 

“Sir?” he asks. The one holding the clipboard asks, “are you loyal to the Soviet Union, Kuryakin?” and Illya blinks again and says “yes, sir,” and the man on the left smiles slightly and says, “if you’d follow me?” and walks off down the hallway. 

Illya hesitates for one long moment. He could go down to dinner, and join the others, and listen to Morozov telling ridiculous stories and watch Kovalev and Antonov arm wrestle, even though everyone knows that Antonov is the strongest man in their unit. 

He breathes in deeply and puts back his shoulders and follows the man who is probably MGB down the hallway. You do not turn down the MGB, after all.

*

The MGB know everything. They know who Illya is. They know who Illya’s father is. They know where Illya’s sister is.

The MGB know everything. They will _always_ know everything.

*

“You’ve made the right choice,” says the man with the clipboard, a little later, and Illya hopes with all his heart that that’s the truth.


End file.
